Roundup: Governors Downplay Responsibility, Play Up Pageantry, and Rassmussen Releases a New Abortion Poll

How much power does a governor have over the state’s agenda regarding abortion access? It really depends who you ask.

Illinois’s Republican candidate for governor, Bill Brady, says there’s really not a whole lot a governor can do to stop abortion in the state on his or her own. But that won’t stop anti-abortion activists from pushing him. Via the State Journal Register:

Bill Brady, the Republican candidate for governor, is pro-life but told a group of Springfield senior citizens on Tuesday that there is not much he can do about abortion if he is elected.

“Yes, I am pro-life,” the state senator from Bloomington told a luncheon of about 40 people at Temple Israel on West Governor Street. “But really, if you look at the makeup of the letter of the law, there’s very little that the governor can do.”

…

William Beckman, executive director of the Illinois Right to Life Committee, said Brady is underestimating the power of the governor’s bully pulpit.

“I think he’s probably, to some degree, minimizing the impact the governor can have,” Beckman said. “Unfortunately, in the state of Illinois, it seems the so-called political advisers seem to be of the mindset that you have to put these kinds of issues under the rug.”

Is the governor mostly a ceremonial role when it comes to abortion policy in the state? If so, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is embracing it whole-heartedly.

South Carolina has just passed a new waiting period for women who wish to procure abortions. According to WSPA News, the new mandatory 24 hour waiting period will be signed at — yep, a pregnancy center.

GovernorMark Sanford will be in Spartanburg Wednesday morning for a ceremonial signing of a bill requiring a waiting period before an abortion can be performed.

Spartanburg’s Carolina Pregnancy Center was one of the spearheads for the 24 hour bill. The bill increases the time a woman must wait to get an abortion from one our to one full day after getting an ultrasound or reviewing information about the procedure.

Of course, the governor does have real power to set the agenda when it comes to access to reproductive rights, as we learned in Oklahoma and Florida this year. But too many governors are willing to embrace the pomp and circumstance of the office without being willing to make the hard choices to not unduly burden women.

Public education urgently needed, because the 53% of women in the poll were expressing an ill-informed opinion, and anyone should know that in the absence of knowledge and experience, one should defer an opinion.

Most women should know about the women I talk to, who have to postpone an abortion because they simply can’t pay for it, can’t get transportation, lodging, childcare, etc, for a routine, legal procedure in the great USA.

Seriously, the success of this propaganda machine which has seized on this moralizing and demonizing campaign against women, which hurts the most vulnerable women and children, is the tragic spectacle of our day. And I talk to the victims every week. It’s amazing what a tiny drop of compassion will do to help them, because the callousness and hatred of them is so rampant thanks to the evil crusaders.